First Meeting

by Bernard Lecoeur

It was on the eve of summer, a young man comes to see an analyst who is well ahead in years. Anxious not to demean from the “tell everything” and thus to give evidence to the seriousness of his request, the young man says to the elder analyst without hesitating:

—I come to see you because I know that you will die before me.”

Such an admission could only be the pledge of a sincerity full of promises. A slight trouble reached the young man, a kind of flickering. He had emptied his bag and he found himself empty. Delightful jouissance of the confession. The analyst remained silent and put an end to what became the first appointment of a many more.

As he was making to the doorstep, the young man hears the old man’s firm voice:

—Before leaving, please leave your telephone number with my secretary. That way,  if I happen to pass away during the holidays, we will be able to reach you.”

To pass away. The death wish was there just to give the change, only the will to deceive mattered. It indicated what the most irrefutable frankness owes to fake (deception).

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A First session

by Bruno de Halleux

She arrives anxious — this is her first session and the first time she is meeting a psychoanalyst. She had called me the day before.

It was an emergency, she had to answer a desperate call, she could not hang up the phone and she was sick in bed with a 103° fever. She was overwhelmed with anxiety.

She works at a suicide prevention center. She is a psychologist. It’s hard for her to stand back and withdraw from emotionally charged situations, and, at the same time, she wants to save the suicidal people who call the hotline.

She is hopelessly selfless, altruistic, and only lives for the Other.

She has many lovers and every time she is loved to madness—she demands it—but the relationships do not last. She ends affairs quickly, thinking of herself as a tormentor of hearts, a heartbreaker.

She is exceedingly permeable to the Other; a friend tells her: “you are the Other!” (“Tu es l’Autre!”, phonetically “Kill the Other”) —Kill?, she exclaims!

She remains silent for a while, then she makes a new appointment.

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Exposed
(À découvert, meaning to be discovered or to be overdrawn, financially)

by Dominique Carpentier

She has been my patient for several years now. She remains ambivalent about a cure that although seems to work and is able to make arrangements that greatly facilitate her life, she disrupts her life because she deems it expensive. She is not yet fully settled in her profession and complains that she does not have enough money for her analysis.

And then again, when she is between two cities, two jobs, a new apartment and a love encounter, her money problems resurface.

—I do not want to be “exposed” anymore! She exclaims. This is what the analyst signals with alacrity. The cure then takes a different direction with the uncovering of this equivocal discovery.

She complains of having to explain everything, “to control” everything, to give everything and to be the slave, always transparent, she thinks, to this other to whom she is dedicated — she is sick of it!

She welcomes with relief that the witz of being overdrawn. She hears herself. This serves her jouissance, she takes note, and it changes everything! The cure is vitalized by the renewed bet in the power of speech, the fuel of desire.